Monday, March 31, 2025

From broke musician to working dev. How college drop-out Ryan Furrer taught himself to code [Podcast #166]

Programming LanguageFrom broke musician to working dev. How college drop-out Ryan Furrer taught himself to code


On this week’s episode of the podcast, I interview Ryan Furrer. He’s a Front End Engineer working on tools that help companies monitor their buildings for energy usage, water leaks, and other environmental factors.

Ryan dropped out of college and worked as a musician and violin instructor. He spent 5 years teaching himself how to program before getting freelance gigs, and ultimately landing developer jobs.

We talk about:

  • Life as a broke musician

  • Teaching yourself to code while working full-time

  • How Ryan had to move back in with his parents after a divorce

  • His 5-year journey to his first developer job

Also, I want to thank the 11,384 kind people who support our charity each month, and who make this podcast possible. You can join them and support our mission at: https://www.freecodecamp.org/donate

You can watch the interview on YouTube:

Or you can listen to the podcast in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. Be sure to follow the freeCodeCamp Podcast there so you’ll get new episodes each Friday.

Links we talk about during our conversation:

Ryan’s podcast, Web Dev Dialogues: https://www.webdevdialogues.com/episodes

Ryan’s website: https://www.ryanfurrer.com

A freeCodeCamp course on the Astro front end development framework taught by freeCodeCamp podcast guest James Q Quick: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-the-astro-web-framework/

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